


Reese’s secret journal, Harold’s bird aliases

by Souhashi



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcohol Withdrawal, Birds, Homicidal Ideation, M/M, Murder, Rating May Change, diaries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-09-17 14:03:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16975956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Souhashi/pseuds/Souhashi
Summary: Jaded, distrustful and recovering from his suicidal spiral, John Reese is determined to even the playing field by learning everything about Harold Finch.





	1. Finch

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this on tumblr, but after I made an account here I decided to revisit it and polish it up. I also remember promising more chapters, covering all of Harold's aliases but I'll have to see how real life treats me. I'd love to continue this though.

John Reese the soldier, the spy, the killer knew one thing very well. The only place where his thoughts were his own was his mind. He had learned this the hard way, in a long and painful feedback loop during his years in the CIA. It was a lesson that had a face in Kara’s sneers and degradations raining down on him at the slightest displays of emotion, a torturer pouncing on a grunt, a twitch, to deliver pain beyond his wildest nightmares.

There was nowhere to hide. Nothing was safe. And things have changed.

Speech was detected and recorded, filed away. Files were stolen, worms and Trojan horses infecting computers, siphoning information. At the bottom of it all, a great beast, a behemoth calculating and predicting outcomes, pouncing on anything that it found interesting.

Harold Finch held the leash to this abomination. The Machine he called it.

The little man also happened to turn his life around. He had to hand it to Finch, it took some balls to get his cronies to abduct him and tie him to a bed, to make a point. He had played him like a damn fiddle, using a murdered woman’s agonising final moments to jostle him into action.

What was worse, the man knew everything about him. That made him uncomfortable no matter how pure Finch’s intentions might have been. He felt naked, exposed, his mind unravelled for the little man to exploit.

With the beast in Finch’s leash it’s difficult to escape, to find solace. Write it in a computer and he will know immediately. Erasing it does nothing. Talking about it, even if he talks to himself, is even worse.

Paper is different.

There were no archives, no records for the little man to access. Flick a lighter and it all becomes ashes. Add a meticulous evasion routine and the Machine -and Finch by extend- would never know.

And here he was, away from Finch and his cameras. He pulls out a small, leather sketchbook. The final line of his defences, his inner sanctum. He had promised to himself, if Finch breached this sanctuary, he would put an end to him and run.

He managed, to his bemused surprise to keep his talent at sketching secret from everyone. Everyone who was still alive really. Perhaps it was the stereotype that came with his kind. Government-sanctioned killers do not sketch the people and buildings they see during a stakeout. After Finch’s brutal intervention he found out he could still do it, his hands still remembered. Jessica’s lovely profile, etched in soft pencil was in one page of his secret journal. Harold’s profile and front in another, harder and swifter lines, from memory. And birds.

Harold’s fixation with birds.

He locates his latest pencil work and writes underneath: _The finch_

_The term finch encompasses the wide array of colourful birds in the Fringillidae family, native to Europe and the UK. The one pictured above is a male Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) which I chose for its garish plumage and quiet, inconspicuous nature. It’s a small bird, with a length of 15 cm and a wingspan of 22 - 26 cm. It has a short lifespan of 2-3 years._

_A Bullfinch feeds mainly on buds, berries, seeds, shoots, and invertebrates. If you go looking for it, it can be found in woodland or farmland populated with thickets or hedges or any other kind of dense shrubbery. It spends a lot of time hiding so look out for its distinctive call._

Such an odd little bird.

Terribly small and frail, it easily fit in his palm. He could close his fist and crush it if he wished. Just like he could reach out, wrap his hand around Finch's throat and snap his neck in one swift movement.

He certainly could but he wouldn't. Not yet.

_A garish plumage and a quiet, inconspicuous nature. I see what you did there, Finch._

The man did love his suits, each one worth more than his paycheck. Quality fabrics, sublime tailoring and colour combinations that stood out. The man did try to blend in, but his outfits betrayed him.

_What’s your endgame Finch? Hiding in plain sight? Enjoying seeing the masses pass by, ignorant of the control you have over them?_

Perhaps it was apt. A garish little bird, boldly singing while hiding in the bushes.

A foolish little bird, brazenly landing on a vicious predator, prancing, and fluttering around. It challenged and provoked, daring the beast to do what it does best.

Reese found out he couldn’t. He would wait this out, see where it took him.

He would wait and see, what the little bird would do. Because Finch had everything to lose in the desperate crusade he pulled him in.

Reese had nothing.


	2. Partridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wew lads that rating change...I did not expect it to be honest, it happened as I was writing this but it made sense so I left it in. Kara Stanton and John Reese have a very unbalanced dynamic and it has been implied in the show that Kara would use sex to manipulate Reese. She also never seems to care about what John wants and that includes his consent. That said, the non-consensual scene is not very detailed and you can skip it by ignoring the paragraph after "Almost."

 

His hands have stopped shaking.

He had to grip a pencil in his hands to realise but he did not have much time for drawing the last two weeks. The hard wood seemed almost alien against his fingers. When Finch told him the numbers never stop coming Reese never fathomed the rate at which crimes, premeditated, predicted crimes happened. There was Theresa Whitaker and Joey Durban, Megan Tillman and Judge Gates, Zoe Morgan. There were others, he remembers their faces, but not what happened. Deep down, Reese knew what to blame for these lapses in memory.

Finch had been adamant, if he was to continue working with him, Reese had to be detoxed.

Reese remembers cocking his head, squaring his shoulders at the little man’s demand. He’d liked to think he was merely testing Finch, testing the leash around his neck but he knew the killer inside him propagated an entirely different message.

Detoxing was difficult and painful. It would render him vulnerable, _dependent._

Finch had first regarded his clouded look and stiff shoulders with that half-horrified, half-annoyed look he liked to grace him with. Reese had hated it then. A pet acted out and the bad owner is already considering sending it back.

He couldn’t bring himself to hate him now.

During a mission in Serbia he had been in the receiving end of a syringe loaded with heroin, as a crude means to make him talk. Kara rescued him with nary a word and went through almost all the steps to treat a man under the influence.

Almost.

Thinking he was still in captivity, he fought. Kara simply tied him down, zip ties digging into his skin and turning his hands blue. The drug wracking havoc in his body, he said things, did things, hallucinating the life he could never have. A ball of cloth and some duct tape took care of the yelling and Kara indulged them both, a grin on her face as she took Jessica’s shadow and wore it like a shroud, her hands reaching for the hem of his underwear.

He didn’t remember much of what happened. The marks on his wrists and ankles blended with all the others and faded eventually.  The panic and the helplessness faded as well, until Finch put forth his demand.

Reese had fought his interference, every step of the way. He dismissed him, said he would take care of it and retreated to the darkness of his apartment to battle the painful first 48-hours of withdrawal. First came the nausea, and then the shaking, he could deal with those. He broke down in a cold sweat and no number of blankets could bring him any modicum of warmth. He could deal with that too. Then delirium set in and Reese had known panic he hadn’t experienced in a while. He had passed out, certain he would aspirate his vomit and die sometime during the night.

Finch had surprised him. Again.

The sun was warm on his face when he had woken up. It seared a path across his face, blinding him momentarily as his eyes cracked open. He saw Megan Tillman and Finch framed in gold as he leaned forward, bearing that same stricken expression, the one that had driven Reese away. There was the comfort of soft sheets and the pull of an IV on his arm, Tillman’s stern look telling him everything he needed to know.

“Why would you _do_ that to yourself?” Finch had asked, an edge in his voice as he helped him sip some water. It was supposed to be a reproach, but Reese always had a knack for reading between the lines.

_Why did you refuse help?_

Reese didn’t have an answer. Not an easy one anyway.

_I think you are a stuck-up prick, way over your head._

_I don’t trust you._

_I thought you’d take advantage of me._

_I was scared to be vulnerable._

_I’m sorry._

“I’m sorry.” He had croaked, the words scraping their way out of his mouth. Finch had stayed with him until the symptoms eased.

The pencil glides easily over the paper, his hands steady and sure in their course. The sound is a balm to his soul. He was pleased to notice; the small leather book had remained undisturbed for the duration of Finch’s stay in his house. As soon as Reese deemed himself fit for duty he had dived in, saving people at Finch’s direction. Withdrawal had crippled his performance and Reese had earned his fair share of bruises and fractures, but it had been enough to wake up long dormant instincts. Instincts he had buried, to put an end to himself.

He remembered why he was doing this. Why he chose to be a soldier, why he became the dark.

At first it was difficult. It was a fine line in the sand, right and wrong. The waves and the wind had worn it out and it was just him seeking where he had drawn it in the first place in despair. He had to stare in the eyes of a rapist, the empty eyes of absolute, remorseless evil to see who he had been and who he could be before he plunged his fingers in the wet sand and drew that line again. There would be waves, and wind, yes. But he would draw it every time and there would always be someone to help him choose the right spot.

The people he had saved, they were determined, resourceful, kind. And Finch.

There was always Finch.

The papers had been dissecting the fall of Virtanen for days now, talking about consequences, bankruptcy, shame, mismanagement. An unexplained turn of events, puzzlement all around. For once the bigger picture was clear in Reese's mind. He was there when Zoe Morgan dug through their falsified records, he had been a witness when the CEO gleefully signed off his life. Reese had turned the syringe on his would-be killer, Zoe Morgan was alive and well, and Finch alias Partridge had toppled a rotten empire over breakfast.

The bird he just sketched is handsome, a collection of curves which demanded dexterity and suppleness in his whole arm. With a flourish of his hand he names it.

_The partridge._

_Out of all the members of the Phasianidae family, I chose the red-legged partridge (alectoris rufa), a striking and interesting bird. Its feathers are an extravaganza of patterns, streaks and speckles in earthy colours accompanied with a bright red bill. Despite the distinctive pattern of its feathers, the partridge manages to remain camouflaged._

_A shy bird, you can find it in Portugal, Spain, France, Northern Italy, and the UK, hunting for food in open slopes and fields. They feed on leaves, berries, acorns, shoots, and seeds while chicks survive on a diet of insects._

_Red-legged partridges are bigger than most of their cousins with a length of 32-34 cm and a wingspan of 45-50 cm. Their maximum lifespan is 6 years._

Finch was certainly not a gamebird, though he pretended to be one.

The little man had stood in front of a hitman, ready to defend Theresa Whitaker with his life. He walked straight into a robbery and warned him of a trap. He also put on his best suit, pretended to be interested in investing in a shady company and bankrupted them with quiet efficiency. It didn’t add up, it was empathy and worry and compassion and utterly ruthless, calculating manipulation.

He had been wrong about Finch, and he hated himself for becoming so jaded. He had saved his good side for the numbers and snapped at Finch whenever he could. The presence of the other man was raising his hackles, sending his mental defences up. Finch had been careful in how he wore him down, building his trust. He knew him inside out, knew what to say and what to do. Kara was doing that too, but it was cold, detached, a dissection rather than a biopsy. Under Harold Finch’s care he was being reverse-engineered, to be rebuild, better.

 _We call that refactoring Mr. Reese._ The Finch in his head supplied, the inflections playful. In these two weeks Harold Finch had showed him he knew what boundaries not to cross and he would dive in the trenches with him, limp, and all without hesitation.

Reese’s six was covered.

Finch might not be a gamebird, but he would be hunted like one. For all his talents, Reese was not so sure the man was equipped to evade them all.

_Who’s going to protect you Finch? Who’s going to have your six?_

It didn’t take him long to work out the answer.

Turns out he already knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely loved painting partridges, they are very Harold Finch-like birds. Despite their beautiful plumage, they unfortunately make for a delicacy in my country and they are hunted relentlessly. Seeing one in the wild is very rare. The bird info is paraphrased from Rob Hume's book, The Complete Guide to Birds of UK and Europe. Also I managed to get off my ass and update this which was the biggest surprise of all.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure how in character I was with Reese actively considering killing Finch but it sort of makes sense to me, that Reese would consider an exit plan in case he was burned.  
> All bird info is paraphrased from the Complete Birds of Britain and Europe by Rob Hume, a very excellent book. It's one of the most detailed guides to British and European birds, containing loads of info on basically everything, from feather patterns to flight patterns to an honest-to-god CD with all the bird calls.


End file.
